Did Margaret Thatcher protect a pedophile?

That’s the question being raised by revelations that a staffer of the British prime minister known as “the Iron Lady,” beloved by conservatives and often compared to Ronald Reagan, was advised by the head of her country’s equivalent of the CIA that “the risk of ’embarrassment’ from publicizing a politician’s suspected child abuse was greater than the ‘danger’ he presented” to children. (Well, of course; the administration was be protected at all costs, eh?)

Apparently a prominent MP and Thatcher ally had a “penchant for small boys,” and several “senior members of Thatcher’s cabinet” knew about it, but kept it quiet for political reasons. According to CBS News, “over the course of several years the sex abuse scandal has snowballed” as more documents come to light, “revealing — at best — a pervasive lax attitude among British law enforcement, politicians and celebrity culture toward the abuse of children during the 1970s and 80s.” (Click here for story.)